The bones of what you believe
by Bookjunk
Summary: Post-season 3. Carrie 'fundamentally incapable of being happy' Mathison tries her hardest to resist what Quinn is offering her.
1. By the throat

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 1: By the throat**

'You sigh. You didn't use to sigh,' Carrie said, sounding to herself like she was making a statement of some significance. She was being a pain in the ass. Quinn managed a weary smile.

'I think sighing is a pretty normal thing to do,' he pointed out.

'Why'd you quit?' Carrie asked. She could be subtle. It took some effort, but she could turn off her battering ram function. Not tonight, though. Quinn looked as if he had known all along that this question was coming.

'I told you,' he replied.

'Tell me again,' she demanded. Quinn sighed.

'I used to agree with the mission coming first. Rationally. Emotionally. I really believed that. I no longer do. That tells me that I'm no longer suitable for the work.'

She could tell by his expression that this was more than he'd intended to say, but it was still not enough. She was greedy. She wanted details.

'So, what exactly…?'

'It started with the boy I killed. Then it was what we did to you, what we let Javadi get away with, the Akbari operation. It was cumulative. The end,' Quinn explained while he got up from the couch. Startled, Carrie remembered that Saul had told her - not that he had needed to - how not okay Quinn had been with putting her in the mental hospital. She had been a willing participant, though. Quinn knew that.

'Admit that you miss it,' she insisted. Her request was tinged with more than a little desperation. She had thought that they were alike. That they both needed the job like other people need oxygen. Except, Quinn didn't. He was fine without it.

'I admit nothing,' he said drily. He poured her tea. She warmed her hands on the mug and looked at him as he sat down again. He was turning into some sort of hermit/lumberjack hybrid creature. He was wearing plaid, for fuck's sake. Although, come to think of it, maybe he always wore that in his free time. How the fuck should she know?

'You're all... I don't know. Laidback and countrified. Is that plaid?'

She leaned forward to finger the fabric of his shirt. Quinn allowed it to happen. When she was satisfied, Carrie leaned back. She took in his cabin. A cabin in the woods. It was much smaller than the other one. Much more secluded. Nothing like that other cabin at all, really. Still, Carrie felt a little raw.

'You look like a fucking moron,' she informed him. She expected him to smile.

'You're being a fucking dick.'

'Well, you shot me,' she countered, because she couldn't think of anything else to say.

'Besides the point.'

'_You shooting me_ is besides the point?' Carrie laughed, incredulous.

'That's what I said. You wanna do some verbal sparring? Okay, we can do that,' Quinn shrugged, setting his own mug on the floor and facing her.

'I don't know what you're talking about,' she scoffed. He dismissed that.

'You do.'

Carrie glared at him. Quinn smirked and made a B movie 'come at me' gesture. She didn't react.

'We're friends. I can take it. Come on, do your worst,' he urged. Carrie waited a long time before responding.

'We're not friends,' she finally protested. It was childish and she knew it.

'Yeah, Carrie, we are. We talk. We help each other out. That's what friends do. We're friends.'

'Pff,' was the only sound Carrie made. Quinn didn't quite smile, but he was clearly amused.

'Why do you always think that people are lying to you?' he inquired.

'Because people are always lying to me.'

'I don't,' Quinn stated. After a second, he amended that to: 'Not since I quit the CIA.'

'You haven't told me a single untruth? Not one lie of omission?' Carrie needled. He hesitated. A strange mixture of triumph and disappointment washed over her.

'Ah, well, that's it then, isn't it? Good thing we're not friends. Friends don't lie to each other. They're not supposed to anyway. Or so I've heard.'

She had meant for it to lighten the mood. Instead, it just sounded sad. Pathetic. Too close to the truth for comfort. Quinn hardly appeared to notice. Some sort of internal struggle seemed to be taking place.

'So, what's the big lie, huh? What are you keeping from me?' Carrie asked. It came out of the blue, though this might simply be more evidence of how good she was at fooling herself.

'I am in love with you,' he said. She took it in calmly, nodding. It was bullshit, of course.

'It was the surveillance, wasn't it?' she asked. Quinn looked at her as if she'd grown a second head.

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'You watched me. It creates a sense of connection. An illusion of intimacy. Maybe you even identified with the subject, meaning me. I did the same thing.'

It was a hard thing to do in that fucking cabin with the tea and a guy who looked at her the way Quinn did, but Carrie didn't cry. She blinked and thought about how deluded he obviously was if he really thought that he was in love with her. He placed his hand on her shoulder and peered into her eyes.

'Carrie, I'm in love with you.'

The emphasis and the sincerity didn't change the fact that it simply wasn't true. Couldn't be true. Shouldn't be true. Carrie cleared her throat. She wasn't going to fucking cry.

'We both know that's not true,' she insisted, sounding hoarse and on the verge of losing it. If Quinn would just drop it.

'Do we?' Quinn questioned. 'Your entire line of reasoning makes no sense. For one, you loved Brody.'

She started to cry. Dammit.

'I feel like an open wound,' she blubbered.

'Wounds heal.'

'And what if I don't heal? That's what antidepressants are for, I suppose? Gee, I wonder how those will mix with my other meds,' Carrie ranted. Quinn rubbed her shoulder until she moved away. He got up and came back with one of those big cotton handkerchiefs. She accepted it gratefully and dried her eyes.

'Hey, I didn't mean for you to take a swing at yourself. That's not how this works,' Quinn said softly. She rested her head against the couch. Her hair swung over the back of it. She closed her eyes and squeezed them shut. The weird thing was that she didn't mind the pain. That was old hat by now. It was something else.

'I guess I'm just recovering,' she lied. She couldn't help downplaying how shitty she felt. Quinn was having none of it.

'What you are is lonely,' he said. _Am_ I lonely? Carrie asked herself. What did loneliness even mean? Lonely is not the same as being alone. Lonely is being alone and minding. Well, she was alone. She had never known anything else. It had been Carrie Matheson against the world for as long as she could remember. She didn't know how else to live.

'You've been lonely for too long,' Quinn added. She shot him an angry look. He stared back until she averted her eyes. She knew what he was getting at. She wished she didn't. That the meaning of his words wasn't so clear.

It meant that she had suspected Brody of being a terrorist and that he had been married and what it had come down to in the end was that he had been oh so incredibly unavailable and during their great romance – and she'd built it up, she damn well knew that, she had retouched and rewritten until the whole fucking mess was this perfect thing that it had never been - it had just been her. She had been alone in her suspicions about him and then she had been alone in her trust of him and then she had been alone in the psych ward and why was this a surprise? This was her life. It hadn't just happened. She'd scraped this existence together with her bare hands, throwing away friendships and relationships left and right.

So, she was alone. Big fucking deal. Being alone had made her stronger. But it had never felt like _this_. If this is what loneliness feels like, kill me now, she thought.

'You don't have to be,' Quinn offered. God, his eyes.

'Don't be a fucking idiot,' she whispered. For some reason, Quinn took that entirely the wrong way. What a strange thing to do.

'That's enough,' he snapped. He wrapped his fingers around her throat and kissed her. It wasn't aggressive. It wasn't tender. It wasn't something in the middle either. Carrie pulled him down into a horizontal position. They tugged aside clothing in between moans. When they were half undressed, she guided him inside of her. She gasped at the first thrust. It reminded her of that time in the car, because every fucking thing somehow reminded her of Brody.

Quinn slowed down; giving her the time she needed to claw herself out of that flashback. His thrusts turned into strokes. Delicious, long strokes, during which she could feel strips of his skin tremble against her body. The tight muscles of his abdomen against her still soft belly. She clutched at his back and caught handfuls of plaid. Looking at the beautiful roundness of his shoulder, she climaxed. He came seconds later, pressing breathy, shivery kisses to her lips.

They stayed entwined for a moment. Quinn looked at her the way he always looked at her.

'We're friends, Carrie.'

She laughed.

'We're really not, Quinn.'


	2. Tether

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 2: Tether**

_Earlier that day. 06:25._

He was standing in the yard when she came up the driveway.

'Carrie. You didn't go to Istanbul.'

People tended not to be overjoyed when she showed up on their doorstep in the early hours of the morning, so it was nice to see Quinn smiling. Carrie quickly smiled back before turning towards the passenger seat.

'Let me get...' she mumbled. He peered into the car and noticed the car seat. And in it: the baby.

'You decided to keep her,' he said, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. Carrie shrugged, busy unlatching all the damn straps that held her daughter. Finally, she was able to pick her up.

'Yeah. Quinn, this is Angie.'

Because travelling with a baby in tow was like carting around a circus, Carrie then reached into the backseat and attempted to haul out a huge, heavy bag one-handed. Quinn smirked, opened the car door and took it out with infuriating ease.

'How's motherhood so far?' he asked, as they walked up the driveway to the cabin. It wasn't so much a driveway as it was a short dirt road. Carrie looked at the yard. It wasn't so much a yard as it was an extension of the forest. It was all very not-Quinn, yet he lived there. Had been living there for months now.

'Isolated,' she answered. Shit, this is too negative, she realised. Quinn frowned, so Carrie told him about giving birth alone.

'I thought your family would be there,' he said, sounding restrained.

'They offered, but, I don't know. I just… At that point, I still thought that I wasn't going to raise the baby. My sister, she had this judgemental look like I didn't even deserve the pain of delivery. And I knew that my father agreed with her. I mean, I got it. But I wasn't up for it at that particular moment in time.'

'I would've come,' Quinn said. He was basically calling her an idiot for doing it alone. Carrie grinned while he held the door open for her.

'I don't want to burden you with my shit,' she admitted. He countered with 'that's what friends are for,' which Carrie decided to ignore. Like her life wasn't hard enough already without having Quinn as a friend.

'How have _you _been?' she tried, scanning the cabin. It looked absolutely tiny on the inside. No TV or laptop anywhere in sight. He was taking this off the grid, living off the land thing pretty seriously. Quinn pointedly didn't answer her question.

'What did your family say when you decided to keep her?' he asked.

'Oh, they didn't like that either,' Carrie laughed, choosing to remain standing when he motioned for her to sit down. 'Really pissed them off. Can't win, huh? Again, I understand. Even on my meds, I'm not the most stable of people. To them it seemed like just another thing I hadn't thought through. Another last second decision 'cause those always work out great!'

He nodded as if he could see where they were coming from.

'It was kind of frustrating, because it wasn't a last second decision. I had thought about what you'd said. About fucking it up and I realised there were two ways of doing that. By packing it in immediately, which I was planning to do. That would have been like failing without trying. I could at least do that. So, here I am, trying.'

'And how is it?'

'I'm not awful at it. I manage. It's actually pretty great. Wonderful, in fact. Because, Jesus, look at her. But it's also severely limiting. You get into a sort of routine and it's all very familiar. Children: inconvenient. Quite the revelation. Who'd have thought, right?' Carrie said. She presented it with a little hand flourish and a smile, her eyes widened in mock shock.

'Istanbul wouldn't have been familiar,' Quinn pointed out.

'Well, Istanbul has come and gone,' Carrie replied flippantly.

'You're still with the CIA, though.'

'Unlike you.'

'But not out in the field, I'd wager. You miss the excitement.'

He was good at this. Much better than she was at guessing how he felt. Did _he_ miss it? Too soon to ask, probably.

'I do. Plus, it's hard to find someone I can trust with Angie. I don't wanna impose on Maggie all the time. She's busy.'

'You stayed because here you've got a support system and now you don't want to use it,' Quinn deduced. Right again.

'I know, I'm a moron,' Carrie chuckled. The next thing Quinn said came out of left field.

'I could watch her sometimes,' he offered. She raised an eyebrow, studying his face to see whether he was serious. He was. He was offering to babysit. Quinn as a babysitter. It took a while to compute.

'I know you have a son and all, but I can't actually imagine you with a baby,' she admitted.

'You don't have to. Here, let me,' he said, taking Angie from her. 'How does this look?'

Words failed her. Strange, is what she wanted to say. Really strange. Surreal. But also good somehow? In a handsome guy holding a beautiful baby kind of way? Still definitely Twilight Zone-ish.

'I assume you've got more stuff in the car? Unload it and go to work. Unless you plan on taking Angie with you.'

'Are you sure you'll be okay?' Carrie inquired. Quinn rolled his eyes.

'You're worrying about _me_?'

'You got fucking weepy when we were discussing kids before. So, yeah, I'm worried. Will you be okay?' Carrie repeated. Quinn took his eyes off Angie. She was holding his thumb hostage. He looked at Carrie. His eyes were weirdly tender. Fierce too. Carrie could never decipher that look. It was just how he always looked at her.

'I got teary because I thought you'd make the same mistake I made. You didn't. You're not fucking this up, Carrie. I'm good.'


	3. We sink

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 3: We sink**

_Same day. 08:03._

'Are you nervous about leaving Angie with Quinn?' Fara asked. Carrie rolled her eyes.

'I am now,' she joked. She wasn't. Not even a little bit. It was strange. Carrie had a nervous habit of calling every half hour whenever she left Angie with her sister. It drove Maggie crazy. She hadn't called Quinn once since leaving Angie with him.

'She's always nervous,' Max whispered to Fara. They smiled at each other. Virgil exchanged an amused glance with Carrie.

'Thanks, Max,' she said.

_Same day. 12:37_

Carrie was alone in the break room, thinking about maybe calling Quinn even though she didn't feel the need to do so. Still, he was in unfamiliar territory. It would be nice to check in, see if he had any questions.

'_Are _you nervous?' Virgil asked, startling her. He poured himself a cup of coffee while waiting for her answer.

'No. I mean, yeah, but not for the reason you think. I trust him,' Carrie explained. She thought about how Quinn had gotten fucking teary when they had been talking about kids before. She thought about how he'd looked holding Angie. Yeah, she trusted him.

'Hmmm. What are you nervous about then?'

'About Quinn. In general, you know.'

Virgil nodded. Carrie smiled, raising an eyebrow. She barely knew what she was talking about – because Quinn seemed fine; he was doing fine – but Virgil obviously knew what she was talking about.

'Why are you nodding?' she inquired. Virgil took place opposite her and studied her. It was another weird look. It was an 'I'm happy for you' look. She didn't get that one a lot.

'You're worried about Quinn being in love with you, right?' Virgil suggested.

'It's not hard to spot. The way he looks at you,' he added when she didn't say anything. The assumption set her teeth on edge and made her stomach drop. So, Quinn had a special way of looking at her and apparently everyone except her thought they had figured out what it meant.

'And how's that?' she demanded, stirring her coffee. Virgil took his time formulating an answer.

'A little too long, a little too intense. Naked,' he eventually described. Carrie smirked and sipped her coffee.

'Who's naked? Me or him?' she scoffed. Virgil didn't bite.

'Him,' he simply said.

'Naked how? What? Desire? I don't want to sound jaded or anything, but that isn't exactly new.'

Virgil chuckled. He shook his head.

'It's impressive: this talent of yours to cheapen everything. No, it's not lust. Though I'm sure that's in there somewhere too. He cares about you.'

Carrie stared at the bottom of her empty cup. Virgil was right. There was something incredibly vulnerable about the way Quinn looked at her. It was completely unguarded and honest. But that didn't necessarily mean love. Or rather, she didn't want it to mean that. It wasn't that.

'Are you talking about love? Like actual, real love?'

Virgil shrugged.

'Would that be so bad?' he asked.


	4. Under the tide

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 4: Under the tide**

'_We're friends, Carrie.'_

_She laughed._

'_We're really not, Quinn.'_

Quinn smiled maddeningly. Carrie started to gather her clothes. She got dressed while he watched. Angie appeared to have slept through everything, but Carrie still worried. Was this the kind of thing that warped babies? Being in the room while your mother had sex?

'Are you free this Saturday?' Quinn asked. She paused to stare at him. He didn't cover himself up. No false modesty there. Not that she had expected that of him. He seemed not to care about how he looked. Sort of the way she felt about her own body, except she wasn't allowed to because she was a woman.

'I can't drink; I'm still breastfeeding. Life is fun.'

He smiled as if she'd said 'yes and I'll go with you and let's marry and have more kids.'

'I want to take you out. I want to date you.'

Carrie didn't contradict him. After all, maybe he wanted to. Wonders never ceased. She tied her shoelaces and looked around the cabin.

'I don't think that's such a good idea,' she mumbled, beginning to fill up Angie's bag with errant toys.

'Convince me,' Quinn proposed. He rolled onto his side.

'You shouldn't be anywhere near me,' Carrie said. Like most every conversation Carrie had these days it felt like they were having several conversations at the same time. It wasn't just Quinn who brought on this feeling of layers upon layers. It was Saul too. It was the worst with Quinn, though.

Carrie couldn't shake the feeling that she was permanently scratching at the surface to get at what was underneath. Face-to-face conversation had always been made up of different components. Voice, facial expressions, body language, eye contact, physical contact and so on. And then you added up the pieces and you got the true story of the conversation.

Nowadays, Carrie got a lot of stories out of a single conversation. Sometimes her own contribution seemed to have two, three, four meanings.

'You shouldn't be anywhere near me,' she repeated.

'You said something similar during the Javadi operation. What did it mean then? You're too close? You're not close enough?' Quinn asked. You shouldn't be anywhere near me: it fucks with my head, Carrie thought. At least, that was what it meant now.

'No, I don't like this. That's what it means. I don't want you to care about me. Or, if you have to, do it… somewhere else,' she suggested, her voice fading.

'At a safe distance?' he intuited. Carrie rolled her eyes, but that was exactly it. She didn't mind him caring – though she could do without it – but why did he have to be so in your face about it?

'I'm too fucking far away as it is,' Quinn protested. She ignored him and tucked the last toy into the bag. She leaned her back against the wall and sighed.

'Quinn, I'm tired. Let's be realistic here. Maybe once upon a time, if I'd met you in high school or something. I bet I would have filled a million notebooks thinking of you then. Hearts, arrows; you know, the works.'

He chuckled.

'I don't believe that. You? Drawing hearts? No.'

'You're right. I probably would just have imagined that I was married to you and scribbled my married name initials on everything. I'm not a great artist,' Carrie admitted, chuckling too. She would have done more than that. She would have made him a mix tape. She had never made a mix tape, but she would have made Quinn a mix tape.

But they weren't in high school anymore. So, she gently lifted Angie and went home.


	5. Night sky

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 5: Night sky**

It had been a week since Carrie had been introduced to Quinn the babysitter and Quinn the lover. It was night. It was raining softly. The rain pattered against the window panes and made a steady tapping sound on the roof.

Carrie looked out of the window. The world was blurry. Distorted lights blinked in the distance. Shadows drooped as if liquefied. She looked up at the darkness. There was no moon, but there were stars. Tiny pinpricks a long time removed.

There was something about the sky. Looking at it made you feel like maybe everything was connected. Not in a crazy way. Just in a what-if kind of way. It was comforting. Carrie sighed and turned around to gaze at her daughter. Angie had curled her little fingers into adorable fists. She looked completely at ease. Quietly, Carrie exited the room and left the door ajar.

As if by magic, the phone was suddenly in her hand. She stared at it in wonder and grinned at the fakeness of it all. She was so bad at this. She couldn't pretend that she was surprised by her actions. She wanted to call Quinn, so she was going to. It was a decision. It didn't happen to her. Things didn't generally happen to Carrie – except for Brody – she _was _the thing that happened.

Quinn answered the phone, but he didn't say anything.

'It's so weird,' Carrie said. She hated when other people did it. They were not in the middle of a conversation. Quinn had no point of reference. Now he would be forced to ask what the hell she was talking about.

'What is?' he obliged.

'The way Angie completely trusts me.'

Quinn sighed. He was probably tired.

'Is that a thing only babies are capable of?' Carrie speculated. 'To sort of surrender themselves wholly when the person they trust has done nothing to deserve their faith? Or is it just that they don't have any choice? God, how I'd like to be able to do that. Drop me on my head, I don't care. I want those few blissful moments where you feel completely safe. I'd give anything for that.'

'What's your point, Carrie? I mean, not that I don't like talking to you at four in the morning about trust and faith after hearing nothing from you after telling you I love you, but are you sure it's me you wanna talk to? Wouldn't Saul do just as well? He's got a philosophical streak a mile wide,' Quinn reminded her, sounding annoyed.

'Oh, am I no longer allowed to call you? Is that what happens when I don't immediately reciprocate your fucking feelings?' Carrie snapped, pushing back more out of habit than because she thought she was in the right.

'You've never called me before,' he pointed out.

'You never said we were friends before,' she countered. Quinn sighed again.

'Okay, why did you call?' he inquired.

'I wanted to hear your voice,' she said. That shut him up for a solid minute.

'You're kidding me, right?' he eventually asked. Carrie chuckled in lieu of answering. She listened to his breathing on the other end of the line. It was like the night sky. Comforting somehow.

'Angie trusts me,' Carrie explained. 'I haven't earned it, but she trusts me. Unconditionally. It reminds me of the way you trusted me. I trust you too, Quinn. You make me feel safe. I don't know whether that means anything to you, but it means a lot to me.'

'You said that I made you feel uncomfortable,' he objected.

'When did I say that?'

'Just before Javadi's men grabbed you. You said that you weren't sure if you liked being watched over by me.'

'Do you remember every goddamn thing I ever said? I was talking about being under surveillance.'

'No. You felt uncomfortable because it was _me_ watching you, not because of why I was there. I heard you loud and clear, so please don't try to change the meaning around now. I didn't make that shit up. You didn't feel safe.'

Quinn's breathing was louder now. Faster. Angry, to be honest. And still it was nice to know that he was out there somewhere. Wearing plaid – plaid pyjamas? - and calling her on her bullshit.

'Things change,' Carrie argued. 'I may have felt like that back then, yeah, because there was always something a little bit off about you. Or about how we were together. Something about us that didn't really make sense.'

'That was me being madly in love with you,' Quinn responded.

'And wanting to fuck me,' Carrie added.

'That too.'

He is smiling, she thought. She didn't know. She didn't hear it in his voice, though his voice did sound different. It was more of a feeling.

'My _point_ is, that's not how it is anymore. I feel safe with you.'


	6. Recover

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 6: Recover**

Saturday. 11:00.

'Quinn?'

'Who else?'

'I'm having lunch with Saul. Or I'm supposed to, anyway. But I haven't got a babysitter, so I was wondering…'

'Sure.'

'I can't make it out to Walden and get back in time, so could you come here?'

'I'm on my way.'

(***)

Saturday. 12:30.

'I thought you'd bring Angie,' Saul said, eyeing Carrie as if she was about to yell 'ta-da!' and produce Angie from her handbag.

'She's with Quinn.'

Saul looked at her over his glasses and hummed.

'Hmm. I've been re-reading Slaughterhouse-Five.'

It was a non sequitur if ever there was one. Carrie was barely able to bite back a surprised laugh.

'Then it's probably a good thing that I didn't bring Angie,' she responded, lightly, while picking up the menu in front of her.

'What? Yes,' Saul agreed. Carrie noted that he seemed absentminded. Neither of them spoke as they studied the menus. She wasn't reading it, even though her eyes slid dutifully over the words. Her inner eyes were focused on Quinn. Quinn alone with Angie and her own out-of-character lack of concern about this. When she looked up from the menu, Saul was eyeing her again.

'Quinn said that he's in love with me. That's obviously bullshit,' she casually mentioned. Saul's expression didn't change at first. Then it shifted from neutral to incredulous.

'Carrie, seriously.'

'_What?_'

'Are you deaf, dumb and blind?'

'Apparently.'

Saul shook his head.

'Quinn cares about you.'

Carrie dropped her menu. The paper was creased where she'd clasped it too tightly.

'Jesus, you too? I already had this lecture from Virgil. How was I supposed to know? He's always so restrained.'

'Nothing restrained about the way he looks at you,' Saul remarked. She couldn't help it this time; she laughed.

'This is a fucking weird conversation, Saul.'

'Get used to it. Or better yet, look at him. You'll see.'

'I haven't seen before.'

'That's because you weren't looking.'

'Deep,' she mocked. Saul didn't even blink at the sarcasm. He lowered his own menu to the table.

'I talked about this with Dar Adal,' he said. Carrie abruptly stopped laughing. She searched Saul's face for clues that he was kidding. He was not kidding. He was very much not kidding. Carrie sighed.

'Okay, I guessed,' she admitted. 'I'm not a complete idiot. I know that Quinn has feelings for me.'

That was when Saul changed the subject, which didn't give her the chance to correct what she's said. That Quinn thought he was in love with her, but that he was still so fucked up that she doubted he knew what he was feeling. That she didn't know if it mattered that he only _thought_ that he was in love with her. That it was like the difference between thinking you're in pain when you're not in pain and actually being in pain. There was no difference. It felt the same. It was the brain outwitting the body.

(***)

Saturday. 15:00.

'I've been reading to her. She seems to like it,' Quinn murmured. He got up from the couch and carried a sleeping Angie to her room. Carrie surreptitiously checked him out. He didn't look fine anymore. He looked less well-rested. Less well, overall. Something clicked in her mind. She waited until he had closed the door before she voiced her suspicion.

'You weren't sleeping.'

'What?' he huffed, irritated.

'When I called you last week. At night. You sounded tired, but not like you'd been woken up. Just tired. Have you been sleeping alright?'

'Carrie, you're giving me a head ache,' Quinn protested.

'Is it because of me?'

'It's _not_ about that. I'm not angry or unable to sleep because of anything you have or have not done. Okay?'

Quickly, Carrie nodded.

'But you're alright?' she hesitantly asked.

'I'm fucking swell!' Quinn snapped. Carrie wandered over to the fridge and took out a bottle of vodka.

'Have a drink,' she suggested.

'Yeah, developing a substance abuse problem sounds like a great idea. No, I'm going home.'


	7. Get away

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 7: Get away**

Quinn greeted another one of Carrie's late night calls with a terse, 'Do you ever sleep?'

'Do you?' she countered, adding, 'Come over.'

'Don't tempt me.'

'Hey, I'm serious.'

'I am too. Think about what you're doing, Carrie.'

'I have and I want you to come over.'

Quinn sighed. He did _not_ use to sigh. Carrie was sure of it. And she had given him plenty of occasions to sigh during their CIA assignments. An hour later, Quinn was at her door. She opened it. He didn't enter. Instead, he placed his hands on the wall on either side of the door and leaned. It was a weirdly seductive pose. That was how Carrie interpreted it, anyway.

'You're drunk,' he said, not troubling to disguise his irritation. As Carrie propped her left shoulder against the doorframe, she could tell by the expression on his face that he already regretted coming.

'Very perceptive,' she taunted.

'I'm leaving,' Quinn announced, immediately turning to go. She attempted to grab his wrist, but missed and stumbled. He caught her and steadied her. Carrie slipped her fingers around his neck, pulling him closer for a kiss. He did not resist, but he didn't return the kiss either. He just stood there as she mashed their mouths together. This is pathetic, Carrie thought, but she kept up the pressure until he sighed against her lips and gave in. He wrapped her up into his arms and came inside before quickly breaking off the kiss. Apparently, to look at her in that way of his. Smouldering. It was such a cheap romance novel word, but it felt like that. His gaze was hot. Fire barely contained.

'It's your eyes,' Carrie muttered.

'What about them?' he asked, holding her at arm's length while he shut the door behind him.

'They give you away. Your eyes can be cold and analytical. When you're looking at me, they're anything but.'

'Windows to the soul, huh?' he quipped, after a long pause.

'I don't know why you don't bother to hide it better,' Carrie wondered aloud. That clearly pissed him off.

'Why shouldn't I look at you like I care when I do? Why should I pretend? I'm not ashamed of my feelings for you.'

'I'm not saying you should be. I'm not used to it, that's all,' Carrie explained. It was true. She was used to clandestine; not this public thing that he had been doing. Quinn's hands slid from her elbows to her shoulders. First with his left hand and then with his right, he brushed back her hair. He cupped her face. His palms felt cool against her cheeks. He kissed her, hesitantly at first. As if he didn't know whether it was a good idea. Suddenly, he stopped and dropped his hands.

'Wait. You knew? You knew that I loved you?'

Carrie shrugged.

'Dude, the way you look at me... It wasn't hard to figure out,' she pointed out. Yes, Quinn loved her. There were no qualifiers this time. He didn't _think_ that he loved her, he hadn't _deluded_ himself into believing that he loved her: he _loved _her. To stomp down the thought that she had made a mistake admitting this, Carrie kissed him again. He kissed her back eagerly. His resistance was gone.

'Friends with benefits?' she offered while he was kissing her neck. Quinn's breath hitched and he stepped away.

'We're not friends,' he stated.

'No?' Carrie teased, raising an eyebrow. He shook his head.

'No. I'm _your_ friend, but you don't even believe that. And you've made it perfectly clear that the feeling isn't mutual. Yet, you call me...' Quinn paused there, breathing hard. It was plain to see that he was struggling to keep his anger at bay. She watched him warily.

'I'm useful to you. I'm an asset,' he continued.

'Please,' she scoffed. 'I don't think of you like that. What are you doing?'

'What am _I_ doing? What the fuck are _you_ doing?' he snapped, going for the door. Carrie moved to block it.

'Let's talk about you, though, Quinn. Yeah, let's do that. For example, what do you do? You act pissy whenever I ask you to do anything, so what is it you do all day, huh? What are you doing that's so goddamn important?'

He approached her without answering.

'Oh, you're leaving now? That makes sense. You are always quitting. It's your thing,' Carrie yelled. She felt like scratching out his eyes. Instead of shoving her aside, Quinn pushed her up against the door. She gasped.

'Isn't this why you called?' he asked, unbuckling his pants. In reponse, Carrie removed her clothes as fast as she could. He pulled her body against his, gently. The sex was amazing. But it was only sex. Fucking. Afterwards, Quinn wasted no time getting dressed.

'You don't have to go,' Carrie suggested. He laughed at that. His laugh was like an exhalation and an intake of breath all at once. It sounded physically painful.

'I love you, but goddamn.'


	8. Lies

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 8: Lies**

'_You don't have to go,' Carrie suggested. He laughed at that. His laugh was like an exhalation and an intake of breath all at once. It sounded physically painful._

'_I love you, but goddamn.'_

'Translation?'

'Yes, Carrie, I want to stay, but you don't want me to. You already got what you wanted,' Quinn spelled out, daring her to deny it. He stared at her until she averted her eyes. Something's different, Carrie thought. Quinn regularly called her on her bullshit, but this was cruel. She could have handled bitter or broken, but not this.

'Why are you being a dick? You're not a dick.'

He levelled this incredible, incredulous look at her. A classic are-you-fucking-kidding-me look.

'You're using me,' he responded, while continuing to get dressed. 'This type of thing might have worked with Brody, but I'm not playing you. And I don't want to be played either. So, don't.'

Carrie opened her mouth to protest, but Quinn kept talking.

'See, we're both supposed to get something out of this relationship. And I don't mean: please fuck me because I'm nice to you. I don't want to have sex with you. I don't want to babysit Angie. I don't want you to call me in the middle of the night to chitchat. I want all that and more and you know that. The least you can do is take my feelings into account.'

'And how do I do that?' she inquired with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

'Stop calling me and asking me to do stuff on the pretence of being friends. We're only friends when it's convenient for you. You do whatever the hell you want and expect everyone else to fall in line. That's _your_ thing.'

'If that's how you think of me then why do you love me?' she sneered. Quinn treated it like a genuine question. He shook his head thoughtfully while buttoning his shirt.

'I honestly don't know.'

The truly sad thing was that it didn't seem like he had said that to hurt her. Fully dressed, Quinn faced her.

'Look, Carrie. I don't blame you. You expect me to do everything you ask because that's how it's always been between us. Well, I can't handle that anymore. And the way you're trying to solve it is your usual way: manipulation. No judgment there. I was a liar too,' he explained, sounding so goddamn sincere again.

'You're not a liar now?' Carrie asked. She skipped over the part where he had called her a liar, because he was right. She was a professional liar. She lied. It was what she did. She was a liar. It was who she was.

'You learn to be the things you're not,' he said.

'And what if I were in love with you?'

'You learn to be the things you're not,' he repeated, slowly.

'Yeah. Because how fucked would we be?' she quipped. Quinn chuckled.

'We would be _very_ fucked.'


	9. Dead air

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 9: Dead air**

There was a part of Carrie that enjoyed this. The clashing. The expression on his face. That look in his eyes. The loneliness; his and hers.

Then there was the part that wanted to cling to him. That wanted to say 'Peter, Peter, Peter' as if it was the only word she knew. The part that _did_ want him to stay. It was dangerous and she didn't listen to it. She rarely did.

'What will I do without you?' Carrie asked. It wasn't a serious question and Quinn didn't interpret it as such.

'You'll manage,' he answered.

'And what will you do? Get another job? Or maybe you already have one and you're just not telling me?'

'What other job? I have no marketable skills. I can lie. I can kill. That's it.'

It was a cheap parting shot and it also wasn't. Because Quinn didn't do parting shots. Maybe it hurt more simply because it wasn't meant to hurt her.

(***)

That night, her mind was working nonstop. Carrie reached for the phone and gently withdrew her hand again. Quinn was off limits. He didn't want scraps. Okay, she was going to respect his wishes. But she needed to talk to someone. Better call Saul.

'Carrie? What's wrong?'

'Nothing's wrong. I'm just...'

Saul hung up on her. Carrie stared at the phone for a while, before she realised how ridiculous she must look. She scowled and muttered something about unnecessary rudeness. Next, she called Virgil.

'What's wrong?'

Carrie hesitated before answering this time.

'Uhm, nothing. I'm just... calling to catch up.'

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Then a sigh.

'You're just calling to catch up? It's 2 a.m.,' Virgil croaked. He sounded outraged in a subdued way.

'Sorry.'

'I'm hanging up now.'

Virgil then proceeded to hang up, but at least he'd warned her. Carrie was quickly running out of names. She didn't want to call her father. She couldn't call her sister – Maggie would kill her. Carrie bit her lip and called Max.

'What's wrong?'

'Why does everyone keep asking that? Nothing's wrong. Yeah, it's late to be calling people, but we're friends, right, Max?'

'I guess,' Max responded, which wasn't quite the enthusiastic response Carrie had hoped for.

'Do you mind talking to me? Right now, I mean,' she inquired. There was muffled whispering on his end and his reply was delayed.

'No.'

Alright. That was good.

'What do you want to talk about?' Carrie asked, resting her head on the back of the couch.

'I don't know. I don't care. What do you want to talk about?'

He sounded sort of confused. More muted whispering followed. Carrie sighed.

'Never mind,' she said. 'Sorry for disturbing. Bye.'

Well, Carrie thought, it is clearly no use calling Fara now. God, she wanted to call Quinn, but she had botched that, which was a speciality of hers.

_You wanna be my friend? Fuck off._

_You love me? You're an idiot._

_You care about me? Well, fuck you._

She was an expert at throwing things in people's faces. It was almost automatic. And sad, sad, sad, of course. It was kind of hard to look at it like that, though. Like a thing she shouldn't do. Shouldn't be. It was more something that was supposed to be sad than it was a naturally sad thing. And that was sad too.


	10. The mother we share

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 10: The mother we share**

So, Max and Fara were together. It wasn't a thing that should bother Carrie, but it did because, _fuck_. Just fuck.

(***)

That same week. Saturday morning.

Quinn was chopping wood and looking damn good while doing it. Carrie admired him for a while from a safe distance. He was dressed in another one of his infamous plaid shirt and jeans combos.

'You gonna keep staring or are you gonna tell me what you're doing here?' Quinn suddenly called out while turning around to face her. Carrie walked up to him.

'Yeah, okay, let's date,' she acquiesced. Quinn raised an eyebrow and lowered the blade of the axe to the ground. He leaned one tanned elbow on the top of the axe's wooden handle. It looked completely natural. Quinn, right here, the outdoorsy, easy-going vibe of it. Despite the raised eyebrow, he didn't seem surprised. Like a woman driving all the way out to the middle of fucking nowhere because she wanted to date him was a thing that happened all the time.

'What's brought this on?'

'This whole off limits arrangement is really not working for me,' Carrie admitted. The phrasing was awful. Seriously, that was the worst possible way to describe what not having Quinn in her life felt like. Quinn was understandably not charmed.

'That's too bad, because I like it just fine. Anyway, we barely saw each other before,' he pointed out.

'But I knew you'd be there if I needed you,' she replied. He'd already told her that was no longer enough for him, so she anticipated the next question.

'Why are you here?'

'I missed you. I didn't expect to miss you.'

Quinn thought about that. Carrie observed him while he thought about it. She had the distinct feeling that it might be too little, too late. This had been fairly one-sided from the beginning and she still didn't feel capable of matching Quinn's intensity of feeling. She relied on him, she missed him, and she was prepared to date him. It didn't even compare to the way Quinn looked at her.

'I've been thinking about this for a long time,' he finally told her. 'Loving you is hard, but I'm up to the task. But I don't want to do it while you're still working for the CIA.'

'Jesus!' Carrie exclaimed. 'Couldn't you have thought of this before?'

He pushed the axe aside by its handle. It wobbled on the broad edge of its blade for a second, before falling to the side.

'You don't get what it was like for me. To you PTSD is nothing but a get out of jail free card,' he snapped. Carrie waved that away. He was not suffering from PTSD. Or, if he was, that was a risk you signed up for. Part of the job. You ignore it; learn to live with it, whatever. You cope.

'Do you realize what you're asking of me?' she demanded, wildly gesticulating in his face.

'How's that gonna work, huh? We live in your little Unabomber cabin and, _magically_, despite having zero skills, we find other jobs and live happily ever after with a dozen hermit babies? You live in fucking fairy tale land, Quinn.'

'And you don't? Your life is fucked up because of the CIA,' Quinn yelled.

'I'm perfectly capable of fucking up my life myself. I really don't need anyone's help with that. I am fucked up all on my own,' Carrie furiously countered. Quinn smiled bitterly and shook his head.

'Have you ever considered that you might be less fucked up if you didn't work there? All they do is amplify all your worst qualities. You're more paranoid than ever. If I had stayed I would have snapped one day and it wouldn't have felt like snapping. It would have felt totally sane and God knows what I would have done.'

'You're not violent,' Carrie scoffed. He shot her another one of his you're-an-idiot looks.

'Of course I am. Whether you like it or not, what you do says something about you. I could have been making the world a safer place in any number of ways, but I picked 'government-funded killer.'

Carrie scowled.

'What's your beef with the CIA all of a sudden?' she inquired. Quinn sighed.

'Let's talk about what the CIA taught us. Human life is expendable. And not just the lives of the enemy, whoever the fuck that is this week. No, the person who works besides you is expendable too. Leave no man behind? Bullshit. Leave everyone behind if retrieving them means jeopardising the mission. Gotta think about the mission!' he sneered. Carrie rolled her eyes and folded her arms in front of her chest.

'Well, please don't hold back on my account,' she dryly interjected, pushing aside the thought that this was that had happened to Brody. It was what they did to agents and assets alike.

'Trust the wrong person and you're dead,' Quinn continued. 'Friends don't exist. If you're exposed, you're on your own. That's it. No one's coming to save you. You want a life? Tough shit: you can't have one. You can't have a wife or a girlfriend. Oh, you can put a ring on someone's finger, but they're never going to know you. You better not have family either. Forget about them. You have to be a stranger to all your loved ones, if you want to keep them and your country safe. You die? Someone will take your place. You kill a kid?'

'Quinn…'

'I'm not finished. You fuck up and kill a kid? Everyone's expendable. Do you believe any of that? I don't. I don't know if I believed it at some point. I must have, because I lived it. I followed all their orders. I was the perfect soldier. Quitting wasn't a rational decision at all. I had to. I was _this _close to going over the edge. I just couldn't do it anymore. I was done,' Quinn concluded, nearly out of breath.

'Okay, okay. Calm down,' Carrie muttered. She realized that she was saying it more to herself than to him, because he looked incredibly relieved. To have finally been able to tell someone this, Carrie guessed.

'I can't have anything to do with the CIA again. I won't,' he added. Carrie held up her hands in surrender and nodded vigorously to signal that she got it. She understood. No more CIA for Quinn. Ever.

'What do you believe, Carrie?'

'I don't know. I swear. I don't know,' she answered. She knew it wasn't as black and white as Quinn presented it. The CIA operated in a grey area. It was complicated and nuanced. It was… She didn't know what it was. They killed civilians. By accident or design or as an unfortunate by-product of a mission. Collateral was acceptable. It sure as hell didn't feel acceptable most of the time, but that's what she had learned. You learn to be what you're not, she thought, remembering what Quinn had said once. Had she joined the CIA because she was a liar or had the CIA turned her into one? Probably a little bit of both.


	11. Gun

**The bones of what you believe**

**Chapter 11: Gun**

A few days later.

What if Quinn was right? Carrie wondered. She looked at her hands. They looked older than the rest of her. Your hands show your true age, isn't that what people said? She chuckled and studied her hands closely. The broken nails. The worn skin. All those little lines.

I'm old, Carrie realised. Maybe I was always old, she amended. The young have illusions. The old have delusions. Not the same thing.

She had always thought of the CIA as a weapon. She used it to keep the world and, by extension, herself safe. What if she'd been deluding herself? What if, instead of using the CIA as a means to defend herself, she was shooting herself in the foot with it like some amateur?

One day, Angie will be asking the same questions, Carrie thought, and what will I say?

_I loved your father and he loved me. We were doomed right from the start. The company I work for left him to die and I could do nothing but watch. And after your father there was this guy and he was crazy about me and about you and he would have been great for us, but I couldn't walk away. I believed that I was doing something valuable. But now, looking back, it's hard to remember what I accomplished while it's ridiculously easy to remember all the things that went wrong. Sometimes things didn't go wrong. That was worse. People died, but they were supposed to die. Was it worth it? You know, I never really asked myself that question back then. Or, if I did, I never answered it._

What a weak, unsatisfying answer. Seriously. Once Angie had learned everything there was to learn about her father, she would ask about the other guy, of course. The guy who came after. The question Carrie most dreaded was: did you love him?

It was a thing that had been nagging at her for some time now. Since Quinn had told her that he loved her, she'd been asking herself whether that could be true. Why did it matter, though? What was it to her if Quinn loved her or not? It made no difference, right? It shouldn't mean a thing one way or another. Unless she loved him.

Well, did she? Did she love Quinn?

She loved it when he laughed. It made him seem like a real human being.

She loved that he was always on her side. Even when her side was a miserable place to be and it was just the two of them there.

She loved the way he looked at her. Saul and Virgil had said that he looked at her a little too long, a little too intense, but that wasn't it. Quinn looked at her as if she was everything. As if she was breaking his heart just by existing. As if there was nothing in the world he wouldn't do for her if she asked him. And there was this sort of nonchalance about it as if it was fucking normal to feel that way about someone.

She loved thinking about him. She thought of him much more than she should.

Yeah, she probably loved him, which posed a new question. Was she willing to give up the things she loved for love?


End file.
